ThreeWay Hug
by mooyoo
Summary: Super fluffy preseries Christmases


**Title:** Three-Way Hug  
**Fandom:** Prison Break  
**Characters:** Michael, Lincoln, LJ, etc  
**Prompt:** 092, Christmas.  
**Word Count:** 2,287  
**Rating:** G  
**Summary:** Super fluffy pre-series Christmases

**Disclaimer:** Paul Scheuring and a whole lot of other people who aren't me own _Prison Break_.

**Warning:** Um… fluffy. Very fluffy. Quite possibly the fluffiest fluff that ever fluffed.

Lincoln had a love/hate relationship with the holidays for much of his life. The days that ran from Thanksgiving to New Year's were usually either some of the best or some of the worst of the year, and very seldom something in between. He loved Christmas when he was young, loved it even more after his father left, but slowly began to grow out of it as he got older.

It was nice to watch his brother get excited about the holiday, making ornaments made out of construction paper and pestering their mother for hints about what they were getting, and it was one of the few days out of the year that no one had to work or go to school or do anything except sit on the floor of the living room and play Monopoly or watch movies. But he began to loose the youthful eagerness for Santa Claus and reindeer at a certain point and found it harder and harder to get thoroughly excited for the holiday as his brother did.

Christmas of 1981 had always stood out in his mind for no particular reason that he could place. He was 11, Michael 6, and it was the beginning of his waning interest in what he thought was the childish part of Christmas. He didn't ask for anything special that year, had come to the realization suddenly that there was, in fact, no Santa Claus, an epiphany one random day in July, and understood now why he couldn't get everything he wanted each year. He kept the illusion up for his brother, knowing that his mother would roast him alive should he spill the beans to Michael.

The days between Thanksgiving and Christmas were getting longer and darker, colder than he remembered them being last year, and more and more Lincoln had begun to wish he could skip right over December, January, February to springtime, when things were warm.

Lincoln held onto Michael's smaller mittened hand as they walked home from school one afternoon and listened vaguely while Michael buzzed about the Christmas tree they would decorate later that night. In Michael's free hand was clutched a small star made out of popsicle sticks and bright blue yarn, which he waved around through the air as he prattled on about tinsel and lights and candy canes. Lincoln was only half-listening, but he rolled his eyes when he heard things like "Best tree ever!" and "Five days away," and Michael was so wrapped up in Christmas spirit that he didn't notice the traffic light in front of them change. Lincoln had to squeeze his hand to pull him back onto the sidewalk before a car whizzed by them.

Michael begged him to help him bake cookies when they got home while they waited for their mother to finish work for the evening, but Lincoln insisted that he didn't know how and Michael roped him into a game of Scrabble instead, which Lincoln hated intensely. He would've much rather been out with friends playing video games or talking to the girl down the street, and he was becoming increasingly resentful of his having to sacrifice so much of his free time to take care of his brother. Especially when Michael was being annoyingly cheerful about a holiday Lincoln didn't care much for any more.

Their mother came home several hours later and before she'd even had a chance to sit down, Michael was pulling her by the hand to get the tree ornaments out of the closet. Lincoln peeled the twine from around the tree that had been standing untouched in the corner of the living room for the past day waiting to be decorated, and Michael came in a few minutes later struggling with a box nearly as big as himself.

The three of them sat on the living room floor and chatted while they unpacked the boxes of decorations, marveling at things they hadn't seen in a year, and Lincoln argued with his mother while they tried to navigate the hopelessly tangled strands of lights. Then she went off to make hot chocolate while Michael and Lincoln tossed pieces of tinsel at each other, Michael managing to finally draw some laughs from his brother.

"What's your favorite Christmas song?" Michael asked, and Lincoln flopped back onto the floor with a groan. "'C'mon," Michael prodded, moving next to Lincoln so that he could shake at his shoulder. Lincoln swatted at his hands and shoved him away bodily so that Michael tumbled over.

"Lincoln!" his mother scolded angrily as she came back into the room, but Michael just rolled backwards with a giggle.

"I'm gonna stay up all night on Christmas Eve and wait for Santa," Michael declared as he sprang up from the floor and began picking ornaments up to carry over to the tree.

"No you're not," Lincoln snorted, standing slowly to join him.

"Yeah I am!" Michael gave his brother a defiant look.

"C'mon, kid, you're six! You fall asleep at eight o'clock, you think you're gonna stay up all night?"

"I can too," Michael said sounding almost angry and Lincoln began to get the distinct feeling that Michael was mostly arguing now just to prove his brother wrong.

"Phsst." Lincoln cuffed him on the head affectionately, trying to egg him on. Michael narrowed his eyes briefly, but his attention quickly shifted back to the tree, his frown morphing into a grin as he hung up a small ceramic elf. Lincoln watched the colored lights from the tree play across his smiling face and decided to stop teasing for a while.

He watched Michael bound around the room excitedly and remembered just a year or two ago when he was that eager for the holidays.

When the last ornament had been placed in the tree and the last piece of tinsel was strung haphazardly from the branches, the three stood back to survey their work. The overhead lights were turned off so that the tree cast a colorful glow over the rest of the room, blues and greens and reds and oranges spilling across the floor to land at Lincoln's feet, making him feel almost warm again.

Michael stood in front of his mother and she wrapped her arms around him while he held onto one of her hands. He reached out to Lincoln with the other.

"Lincoln! Three-way hug!"

Lincoln groaned, feeling much too old for this, but his mother looked at him imploringly, so he traipsed over and wrapped his arms around the both of them, Michael standing below and grinning up at him gleefully. His mother's hand squeezed his shoulder and he could feel Michael's laughter rumbling against him, and Lincoln smiled despite himself.

Lincoln was sure that with adolescence came adulthood, and with adulthood you let go of childish things like Santa Claus, cookies, homemade ornaments, elves and all the other schmoopy, silly things about the holiday. He enjoyed Christmas well enough throughout his early teenage years, but really, he'd told himself, it was just another date on the calendar, nothing really all that special, except that you got the day off and got presents. It wasn't until the first Christmas after his mother died that he'd realized how much he really had loved it when she was alive.

The holidays of his later teenage years went by in a gloomy blur. For all of his wishing that Michael would hurry up and grow out of Christmas, Lincoln felt an unhappy discomfort that he couldn't quite understand when it finally happened. Christmas of 1986, the first without their mother, was also the first time Michael had replied to Lincoln's asking what he wanted Santa to bring him that he knew that there was no Santa Claus. Lincoln realized then that he was actually sorry to see his brother's childhood naiveté go.

Michael would smile politely at other people's cheerfulness each year when holiday time would roll around, and bow out of any decorating, carol-singing, or cookie-making that came up either at school or at home, telling others that he was too old for that sort of thing, like his brother. Lincoln worried about whether Michael really felt that way or if he only said it because Lincoln did. Later he thought maybe it was because Michael was in the midst of what would become a decades-long depression that left him even more quiet and withdrawn during the holidays. But Lincoln kept quiet, not wanting to waste too much energy on the silly Thanksgiving through New Year's holidays, and tried to let them pass by each year as easily as possible.

It wasn't until years later, Christmas of 1990, that Lincoln enjoyed the holidays as he had when he was a kid, watching with barely restrained glee as his infant son smiled and giggled happily when he dangled a "Baby's First Christmas" ornament over his crib. Over the next several years Lincoln lived for Christmas, realizing that every argument, fight, moment of stress and angst over the rest of the year would mysteriously evaporate by the end of December, when his son would bounce and squeal animatedly, lisping about reindeer and elves, writing letters to Santa, and the elation would usually last him through New Year's.

In 1994 Lincoln and his wife were awakened before dawn by LJ leaping onto their bed squealing that Santa had come. Lincoln told him they'd have to wait to open presents until later, until Uncle Mike had come, then rolled over and fell back asleep with the vain hope that his son would leave the presents under the tree alone for a few more hours.

Michael arrived with the first few rays of sunlight, probably knowing how eager his nephew was to attack the wrapping under the tree, and Lincoln finally grumbled sleepily and trudged with his wife into the living room.

LJ went through his presents with the eagerness of a four-year-old, shimmering silver paper strewn across the room in a flurry, and clapped with delight at each gift that was revealed. Lisa laughed merrily at his excitement, Lincoln beamed, thrilled to see his son so enamored with everything he got, and Michael gave even, patient smiles as he watched the family.

"Did Santa bring you everything you wanted?" Michael asked his nephew as he held the small boy on his lap after everything had been opened.

"Yeah!" LJ nodded enthusiastically while he rolled a new racecar back and forth across the seat of the couch. Then he turned to look up at his father and asked with a hint of awe in his voice, "How does he _do_ it?"

"How does who do what?" Lincoln replied, coming to sit on the arm of the couch while Lisa went to the kitchen to make breakfast.

"Santa!" LJ replied with a lisping _S_. "How does he get to every house in the whole _world_ in one night to give everyone presents?"

Michael gave Lincoln a bemused smile and Lincoln glanced back at him quickly with a brief feeling of panic.

"Well, uh, not everyone celebrates Christmas," Lincoln began sensibly. "You know there's a lot of people who have other holidays, so that's a few houses right there. And with different time zones around the world, Santa's able to cover a lot of ground before the night's really over."

LJ blinked and Lincoln could tell he was loosing him. The question had never come up before, and for the life of him Lincoln couldn't recall either himself or Michael asking the same thing when they were kids. They must have, he mused, and wondered why he couldn't remember it. But so much of that was lost to him now, the complete faith and belief common to small children long forgotten.

"Magic."

Lincoln looked up at Michael gratefully when his brother cut in. "It's magic. How do you think he makes reindeer fly, or gets into everyone's house without using the door?" Michael continued, and LJ turned to look at him with an expression of realization. "Magic."

"Ohhhh," LJ said and nodded, as if that should have occurred to him sooner.

He slid off of Michael's lap and went to put his car back down under the tree, picking up a stuffed horse that Michael had given him and squeezing it to his chest as he ran back to his father.

"Having a good Christmas so far, buddy?" Lincoln asked as he picked him up and stood with him next to the tree.

"Yup!"

"Good." LJ laid his head on Lincoln's shoulder and Lincoln smiled softly and wrapped an arm around him, marveling at the blues and greens from the tree lights spilling over the small face.

After a moment LJ looked up at Michael, still sitting a few feet away on the couch, and held out a hand. Michael didn't get up immediately and Lincoln noticed him beginning to pull in on himself as he watched father and son with eyes that looked almost sad.

"Uncle Mike!" LJ called from Lincoln's embrace. "Three-way hug!"

Michael looked up at Lincoln and Lincoln gave him a look that he thought probably looked much like their mother, and Michael rose from the couch. He crossed the room over to the pair by the tree and Lincoln pulled him into a hug, still holding LJ. He patted Michael on the back with his free hand, a vague attempt to keep the hug manly, despite the four-year-old boy squished between them. LJ grinned and wrapped one short arm each around each man's neck, moving to lay his head against his uncle's chest.

"Merry Christmas!" He chirped, and Michael smiled down at him a smile Lincoln hadn't seen in years.

**-end-**


End file.
